


No Better Occasion

by two_nipples_maybe_more



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Radio 1989-2010 Coules), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Retirement, That secret radio recording of Holmes telling Watson he's in love with him™, old men being sappy and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28314891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_nipples_maybe_more/pseuds/two_nipples_maybe_more
Summary: In the last century—good God, how old these four words alone make me feel—when we were in the prime of our days, Holmes was in the habit of raising me from my bed at all hours of the night. Our consulting room may have had set visiting times, but tragedies rarely stuck to them. It was a necessary trouble in our line of work, but I had long been under the impression that, along with Retirement, so would come some manner of nocturnal peace.I was wrong.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 20
Kudos: 50





	No Better Occasion

**Author's Note:**

> I've been re-listening to the BBC Radio series lately and somehow it always gets to me just how much Holmes pines in this adaptation. Normally, with the original books or for example Granada, I like to headcanon that they get together when they're still working in BS and Watson chooses to cover that up with his fucked up timeline and inconsistent narration, and that they eventually retired together at the same time. But there is... _something_ about the concept of Holmes being in love with his best friend for decades, confessing it and then AGREEING not to mention it afterwards because Watson is married and in love with Mary ( _yes, I'm still thinking about the secret confession scene, Mr Coules #dropthetapes_ ), retiring alone only for them to find each other in the last stages of their life that just *clenches fist* kills me dead. So I wrote something Christmas-y for it!
> 
> Technically it's a radio fic, but you can read it with no knowledge of it without trouble.
> 
> Huge thanks to [Madi](users/cardaisy/) for looking this over and giving the all-clear!

In the last century—good God, how old these four words alone make me feel—when we were in the prime of our days, Holmes was in the habit of raising me from my bed at all hours of the night. Our consulting room may have had set visiting times, but tragedies rarely stuck to them. It was a necessary trouble in our line of work, but I had long been under the impression that, along with Retirement, so would come some manner of nocturnal peace.

I was wrong.

For all I might be used to blindly following my companion into danger, I don’t take kindly to being thrown out of my armchair with barely a word of explanation and dragged out of the house in my slippers. Not when it is almost midnight and I’m enjoying that warm contentment which comes after a good meal, and _especially_ not on Christmas Eve.

Holmes strolled on, indifferent to my grumbling.

“Could you at least have the decency to tell me why we’re outside at night in the middle of winter?”

Holmes laughed and looped his arm through mine. He had thrown his own coat over me in the rush and the cloth pulled at my wider shoulders, so I almost sensed his touch on my bicep through our layers. Somehow, on the other hand, he had also picked up a duvet from the sofa, which he then wrapped around the two of us for good measure.

I could lean some of my weight on him now. My wound ceased to express its dissent, and I walked a little easier.

“Honestly, my dear fellow, you would know if you had taken the trouble to talk with our neighbours.”

“I’ve hardly been here a week!” I protested.

“You’ve _already_ been here a week.” Holmes shook his head, “John, last time I went down to the village people still believed you were here as my physician because I had come down with pneumonia!“

“I’ll show you pneumonia,” I grumbled, but he only laughed again.

Leaning down, Holmes put his lips to my ear, “My dear fellow, take this as a surprise. I am hoping you will like it, so I don’t wish to spoil it yet.”

“Dear me, I feel festive already,” said I, but we were both chuckling by then.

We trod onward, following the small path beaten into the ground by the padding of a thousand feet before us, past his bees and the confines of our hill, over the single concrete road that ran through this corner of the countryside like a vein, until I found myself standing at the foot of a cliff. With Holmes’ aid, we climbed to its apex, and I blinked in silence at the ocean which seemed to go on and on forever beneath us.

“They must have organised something,” I mused, remembering how our path to that destination had been unusually alight, “There, I can see other people down on the ground.”

Looking up at us, one figure who was holding a lantern waved. We waved back.

“This isn’t a... usual occurrence,” said Holmes licking his lips nervously. He slithered his hand into one of my—his pockets and frozen fingers closed gently around mine, “Extremely irregular, in fact. What a stroke of good luck for you to move in this particular year. Look! It’s about to start.”

And so it was: one by one, as if following some unknown cue, the lanterns below us went out. For a few tense moments we stood in utter darkness, illuminated by the burning stars alone.

Then a thin stream of light darted into the air with a hiss. My brain caught on at last, and I was already laughing when the sky exploded.

A wheel of fire uncoiled around its epicentre, showering the landscape in red. The bang reverberated in my ribcage while the howl of approval and joy from the crowd below us resounded in my soul.

“Fireworks!” I couldn’t help but cry, “Good heavens, I haven’t seen a demonstration since—“

“Since the twentieth of June 1887,” finished my companion, “Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.”

“I doubt even Her Majesty had a seat with a view as good as ours.”

Another missile flew up, this one with a wheeze, and a fountain of blue light cascaded down to the water. I joined the rest of the audience in their applause.

“How are they setting them off from the middle of the sea?” I turned towards Holmes and my heart leaped up in my throat. He was looking at me—had been looking at me for some time, with a softness in his eyes which betrayed that he had no interest in the play of light in front of him.

“There’s a rock, if you look closer,” he extended his index to demonstrate, but he didn’t quite move his gaze away from my face, “it forms a small peak that shields both the missiles and their handlers from the waves and the ashes falling after the explosion. The two Walters have been planning to use it for this exact purpose for years.”

“Yes...” I glanced at him again, one eyebrow raised, “what a coincidence.”

Holmes’ expression became comically blank, but he shook his head and let his eyes fall. I snorted.

“Someone may have put in a good word with the council,” he playfully conceded.

“And they agreed?”

“As long as they provided their own fireworks. Of course I assisted them in that regard as well.”

I gaped at him, “You bought a firework show out of your own pocket?”

“Watson, you insult me. I _crafted_ a firework show out of my own pocket. No no no, don’t look at me like that, It’s nothing but chemistry, when you get down to it.”

I fear all that work was lost on me, then, because I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Of all the games made by the lights in the sky, I could only glimpse the way their colours caught along his gaunt face, in the silver of his hair, how the lines around his mouth were accentuated and smoothed at once. He looked sixty, and he looked twenty-seven.

I felt breathless, “That was awfully kind of you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he murmured. His gaze rested somewhere above my right shoulder, “Besides, I could think of no better occasion.”

“I love you.”

I saw his gaze snap back to mine as he sucked in a breath. Not caring if it slipped off my shoulders, I let go of my corner of the duvet to fill my palms with the sharp angles of his face. His eyes slipped shut.

“I love you,” I repeated with more strength, “and I am so incredibly sorry that it took me this long to say it back. I have wasted every second that has passed since the moment you came back to me.”

His hands shot up to grab my wrists, the duvet pooling to the ground behind him. Pulling him to me, I felt him shudder as I buried my nose in his collar. To think I could have had this decades ago! With his fingers digging into my back, I thought about that night, so many years ago, when he told me he was in love with me; I thought about the cliff I was standing on at the time too, albeit one of a different nature, between the two people I most loved in the world, and I thought about the tightness in his mouth as we both promised not to say a word of it again.

I didn’t see it then once we disentangled, neither did I find it against my lips when I kissed him. Only the soft brush of a sigh and the curve of a smile.

“Not wasted,” Holmes said after we had caught our breath, “And it would never have been too late.” He blinked away from another flash of green light, looked pensive for a brief moment, then added, “Ah, yes. Merry Christmas, by the way.”

I laughed, “And a happy new year, you great git.”

And to the cries of joy from the villagers and the light of the last rocket, I kissed him again until darkness swallowed us both.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [two-nipples-maybe-more](https://two-nipples-maybe-more.tumblr.com/).  
> Merry Christmas!


End file.
